Development of a Compact Urban Simulation Model

Abstract

Recent research, such as in Wegener (1996), is revealing that quite radical policies may be required if the transport sector in most Western cities is to do its share in meeting the 2005 Greenhouse targets, to which most national governments have committed themselves. On the other hand, during recent years, planners have acquired their skills in implementing integrated land-use/transport models in an atmosphere of quite gradual change. Thus, with reliable guidelines not available for handling this new situation, and with the large data requirements and computational effort needed for each test run of the integrated models, a fresh approach is called for. In response, an urban simulation model SUSTAIN (Sustainable Urban STructure And Interaction Networks) is being developed to act as a preliminary design/sensitivity analysis tool to streamline subsequent application of one of the integrated models. The package evolved from some preliminary analysis in Roy (1992), itself stimulated by early work in Sweden by Marksjö (1970) and investigations by Anderson et al. (1986).